Flashpoint US Infantry–work in progress

Allright, time to show the trial batch of those Flashpoint Miniatures US infantry minis I’ve been working with for last couple of days. The paint choice is shamelessly ripped off from Head Under The Bed blog – the minis that come from under this guy’s brush are really something and one of my principles is never to re-invent the wheel unless I absolutely have to.

However, certain modifications had to be done, mostly to replace the colours that I didn’t have in my paint box, but also to adjust the palette to (dare I say this?) my ‘painting style’. I prefer to stack the shades, main color and highlights in that very order. Therefore here the first step was an overall coat of a mix equal parts of Russian Uniform 924 and USA Olive Drab 889. Next, Russian Uniform straight out of the bottle is applied to all major surfaces. Highlights consisting of watered down Green Grey 886 were added as last step in paint job for uniforms. Equipment and webbing were painted with Green Brown 879 and highlighted with Khaki 893. For helmet covers I decided to go with Green Grey as my primary paint, with patches of thinned Reflective Green 890, Russian Uniform, Beige Brown 875 and Vallejo Game Color Yellow Olive used for  camouflage pattern. In retrospect maybe I thinned them down too much, since the camo pattern is barely visible.

At the moment I don’t think all that much about the skin colors or the right shades for the shoes, I just want to get the feel for the minis and how they’re sculpted and what works/doesn’t work in regard of the uniform colors. I’m actually quite happy with this initial selection, but as I'll continue working with those minis, I will try to add some variation. As far as I understand, there could be a rather dramatic difference in color intensity of uniforms, mainly caused by exposure to light and elements. It would be nice to be able to show that effect and see which of my minis are 'short' and which are FNG's.

Couple of words regarding the miniatures. My first impression was rather ‘meeeh’, but I have to say that I’m slowly changing my mind. The detail is crisp, which makes them easy to paint and they certainly have their own ‘character’. I’m still wrinkling my nose at the sculpts of some minis and I don’t care about the number of figures with LAW included in this blister pack, but all that being said, there is no denying that they’re growing on me.